Achintya And The Creek

Achintya was an 8 year old boy, quite different from kids of his age. He had the innocence characteristic of his age and the maturity of an adult at the same time. Where people saw nothing, he found life to be very complex. When people found life to be very complicated, to him it seemed very simple. Because of this, he did not have many friends. It was more of his choice than others distancing him. An extremely curious boy but the curiosity was well defined. It did not hurt life in any form.

During summer holidays, he enjoyed going to his Grandmother's house in the village. Village somehow felt full of life compared to cities. Even the hills and rocks seem to have life in the village whereas even people seemed lifeless in the cities.

After an early breakfast, his grandmother and grandfather went to work in the fields. His routine was to walk around the place climbing hills, walking through the bushes, observing the beauty of wild flowers. He would take different (small) pathways to see where they led. He would end up in a different place each day experiencing different things. By the end of holidays he would carry loads of experiences back home and would live reminiscing about them for the whole year.

 He chose one such path that day and started walking. It was an uneven pathway with enough ups and downs to make the walk interesting. He walked slowly bathing in the early morning Sun. Grass bed was almost dry with a few patches of green here and there. Trees had begun to grow new leaves and the light green tinge of the leaves was refreshing to the eye. Something caught his attention. To his right were two Indian Beech trees.

Connecting both the trees was a Shikakai climber. Shikakai climber was unlike any other climber he had seen. It had its roots beyond one of the trees and had grown all over both the trees back and forth several times. The stem was as thick as the Beech tree branch. The bark was thick, sharp and protruding out giving it a thorny appearance. It looked like very long python which had spread between the trees. Because of the weight, the stem had sagged down and was hardly two feet from the ground between the trees. Though it was perfect height for him to sit on climber and swing, the thorny bark prevented him from doing that. The tree leaves and the climber together had formed a canopy. The two trees were on the bank of a small creek. It was very quiet except a few birds chirping here and there. Further down on another tree, a group of insects were buzzing in chorus. With the flowing water it was a brilliant orchestra but he saw something that aroused his curiosity. Under the canopy he noticed there were hundreds of tiny funnel shaped pits. He was mesmerized by the art work. He squatted down and observed one of those small pits that were at the edge of the canopy. Flowing creek had deposited a lot of sand on the bank. Sand around the conical traps seemed coarse but inside the pit it was very fine even textured sand. It had a slightly grey tinge. What had created so many of them, he wondered staring at them. For minutes nothing seemed to move.

He saw a small ant climbing on to the edge of one of the pits. The moment it stepped into the pit, it lost its balance and it seemed to get sucked in towards the center. It was quick sand. By the time the ant reached the epicenter, an Ant lion’s mouth appeared from the sand and pulled the ant inside. Though he felt sad for the ant, he was fascinated at event that had unfolded. He observed other pits around and started wondering. 'Don't they get bored doing the same thing? What is the meaning of their life? Do they think about it every morning when they wake up? Do they have a grandmother's house to go to during holidays?' Then he thought they had a serious problem to worry about. What do they do when it rains? As he looked up through the Shikakai canopy he saw the sun slowly turning yellow from crimson. It was such a refreshing sight. It reminded him of his journey back home from his school one evening in his father's car. There was some commotion and a small group of people had gathered. It looked like there was a small accident. Everyone passing by would slow their vehicle to have a look at the accident site thus slowing down the traffic. When they had moved a few yards further a glorious sun set had loomed into his view. To his astonishment, no one seemed to be interested. Traffic did not slow down at all. He had soaked in the entire sight for the next 5 minutes along the way before the Sun had vanished behind the clouds.

 Broken from his reverie, he got up and walked around the tree to get into the creek. He had been to Grandmother's house many times but this part of the village was unexplored. On the other side of the creek there were a few Acacia trees and thick bushes. He stepped into the water smiling ear to ear. He played in the water for a while and then started looking around. There were small plants on the banks of the creek and thick Lantana bushes on the bund all along the creek on both the sides till he could see.

The bushes had pink and yellow-red flowers. The fruits looked juicy but he remembered his grandmother's words - "They were not for us to eat". A couple of feet to his right something on the bank close to the water moved. He took a couple of jumps and went close. He saw a crab come out of the mud and walked hurriedly away from him. He noticed it walked sideways, which he found very funny. It made him think what if we had ears in place of eyes and vice versa. Would we have walked sideways? He had stopped asking these questions to his parents. Somehow, for adults these serious issues were never interesting and he was always met with answers like 'Oh! Achintya, that's the way it is.' They would always discuss about two groups of people fighting more interesting than bugs, insects, frogs, snakes, grass, shrubs peacefully co-existing. Just as he was thinking, a frog caught a bug and began feasting on it.

 His eyes then moved towards the other edge of the creek. It was small area not in the line of flow but still connected to the creek. An insect appeared to be standing on water. It was larger than a mosquito and it seemed to float on water peacefully. It was a Water Strider and it seemed to move on the water with the grace of an ice skater.  He thought what a cool life the Water Strider had. Just next to the Water Strider, he saw a few small fishes swimming peacefully in search of food. Underwater life always intrigued him. Somehow life looked peaceful down there. There was some sense of calmness in the way life happened. He wished if he could live underwater in a creek.

With that thought he got up tracing his way back towards his grandmother's house. He then walked towards his grandfather's field. His grandfather was busy tending to groundnut plants. His grandmother was cooking in a corner in her makeshift stove with two rocks and dried twigs as fuel. His favorite pass time was to tell his granny stories of his discovery. Granny would have a big smile on her face as she listened intently. According to him, she was the only one who understood him. He thought she was the smartest woman on earth. He spoke about the Antlion, the Water Strider, frogs, small fishes and so many other things he saw as he ate his lunch. To him, lunch in the open in the farm tasted lot better than his usual lunch on the dining table in his home. He could not figure out if it was grandmother's cooking or the farm. After his lunch he spread a gunny bag on the ground and with his head on granny's lap, he slowly slipped into his afternoon nap wishing for summer holidays to continue for the whole year. He thought he learnt more things in a day here than the school taught him the whole year.